When my girlfriend put together my first fixed-gear bicycle a few months ago and presented it to me as a gift, I had no idea of the ride I was in for. Although the small city we live in (around 90,000 inhabitants) is situated in a valley basin ideal for bicycle transportation, bikes remain a decidedly "lower class" means of getting around. Anybody with some economic means is expected to purchase a car and use it regularly, even if this means driving 3 blocks in impossible traffic to go visit a friend or go shopping at the new big box supermarket (with ample parking) that now terrorizes our local economy.
Getting on my "fixie", as fixed-gear bikes are called, was a revelation for me. As soon as I became comfortable with the fact that I had to pedal all the time, I began relishing every opportunity to get on the bike. I began enjoying cross town commutes, errand running and messengering for the family business. I began seeking opportunities to go further and further and would sometimes simply get on and go for a ride with no specific purpose other than enjoying. All of a sudden, transportation was fun, healthy, challenging and generally good for me. As I sped past the long lines of traffic jammed cars with sullen looking people in them, it dawned on me that we are all, as Bob Dylan so aptly put it, "prisoners of our own device".

Here was a perfect example of how dependency leads to enslavement, and of how this dependency is largely a psychological phenomenon. Barring a few individuals who for health or other reasons are literally unable to use a bicycle, the vast majority of these motorists could get to where they wanted to go faster, cheaper, and much more enjoyably if they were to change their paradigm and utilize bike technology. With designs like the xtracycle and cargo bikes, they could even transport their groceries, children, or furniture with little extra effort.
So what is going on here? Why are we collectively destroying our beautiful city and entering into this paranoid internal combustion madness? Do we not see that there are better, simpler ways to transport ourselves and our stuff?
My first response to my newfound awareness was to mobilize among my friends and begin promoting bike use and advocating for cyclist safety. I wrote a letter to our local government and collected around 200 signatures.

It is basically a plea for the creation of bike lanes and bike specific legislation. The letter met with no response, other that the fact that in the weeks following its delivery, the municipal government removed almost all of the speed bumps that had been strategically placed at dangerous intersections to protect pedestrians and cyclists. At one of these intersections, a deadly accident occurred only a week after the speed bump was removed, killing a young driver.

Nevertheless, I continued my foray into bike advocacy and enjoyment, using the internet forums to gather as much information as I could about the subject. During these forays I learned a great deal about worldwide bike advocacy movements, such as living car free, one less car, and others. I also learned that bikes have historically been an instrument of liberation in various settings, as exemplified by this article on female cyclists in the late 19th century: http://www.annielondonderry.com/womenWheels.html

The reasons for our local government’s lack of support were fast becoming very clear, and boil down to the fact that bikes are not good business for governments or corporations, at least not when they are built to last and used in practical ways to empower individuals and save them from vicious cycles of over consumption and dependency. These issues cut to the core of some of the most important problems with our global economy today, our addiction to oil and the imposition of a disposable wealth mentality. This fact is exemplified by the fact that in North America, only 1% of the products consumed are still being used six months after they are bought! This follows a pervasive doctrine imposed by corporate rule, and is clearly stated in this quote by leading post-war economist Victor Lebeau:
"Our enormously productive economy... demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption... We need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate."For more on this, see The Story of Stuff

At the same time as I was becoming more aware and angry about these issues, I was also discovering wonderful dimensions of cycling culture and history, and becoming more inspired and empowered by these. One major discovery was the existence of bamboo bike frames, and the prospects for a more sustainable way to produce bicycles, and other machines using cycling technology.
I began to do research into bamboo varieties, their varying resistances to mechanical pressure, and different methods of preservation and possibilities of techniques for creating resistant joints. Without realizing it at first, I had decided I would build my own bamboo bicycle.

Here is a bike made in the late 1890's. The bamboo is still structurally sound after more that 100 years, and will probably outlast the steel lugs!

This is a decision which led me to a series of adventures and quests that I will describe, beginning with sourcing the right bamboo and getting it to Chiapas. I would like to point out that during the entire process of researching and constructing the bamboo frame I used the internet as my main source of information. The bamboo experts were contacted via email, information regarding the appropriate bamboo species was obtained through various websites and the method of constructing the frame I learned through careful observation of images of bamboo bikes I found on the internet.
After much reading and some forum posting, I decided that I would try using two varieties of bamboo, both known for their structural strength: Phylostachis Aurea, and Dentrocalmus Strictus, or "iron bamboo".
The iron bamboo is grown in the state of Yucatan by a company called Yucatan Bamboo. I was able to contact them via email and place an order to be delivered to my address.
The Phylostachis I found out is widely grown in the state of Veracruz, but was unable to contact the growers via internet or telephone. Instead, I began emailing with a man named Clinton McDowell, also known as "Mr. Bamboo". After corresponding with him, an opportunity arose to visit his home in Tepotztlan, Morelos.
The visit to Mr. Bamboo’s home was interesting and fruitful. He freely gave me a great deal of information on harvesting and treating bamboo, different species and their uses, as well as a tour of his own clumps. By the end of the visit, I had acquired enough Phylostachis Aurea for my purposes, and made a new and interesting friend.

Now that I had material, I was able to begin experimentation with how to actually assemble the bike. I quickly learned I would need some metal bits to interface with the working parts, essentially a bottom bracket shell to hold the spindle for the crank and pedals, a headtube for the fork to go through, a seat tube, and some dropouts for the rear axle to bolt on to. It did not take long to find out that there are no suppliers for bicycle frame builders in Mexico, so there was no chance of getting the parts new. I did notice, however, that old bike frames were often sold as junk metal. I visited my favourite local bike shop, and in a few days had a couple of old frames to saw away at. I was able to find a bottom bracket shell new at the bike shop, as they are used to convert italian threaded brackets to the more conventional english threading. So now I had assembled all the elemts and was ready to begin experimenting with actually building my first bike frame!

Of major concern to me was getting the geometry of the frame right. I decided I was building a track bike, with tight geometry and a fixed rear hub. This made my work simpler as I did not have to worry about gears or a rear brake. Instead of designing my own geometry, I borrowed a high-end racing frame from the bike shop and made my jig around that. Then it was a simple matter of fixing the metal bits onto the frame and sawing and mitering the selected bamboo to fit.
Before doing this however, the bamboo had to be heat treated. This greatly strengthens the bamboo, as well as crystalizing the sugars to discourage bugs from boring into it. I did this by putting the bamboo in an oven for 3 hours at 350 degrees farenheit. Two culms cracked during this process. Lucky I had spares! All the internodal membranes had been drilled out prior to heat treating. I then filled the culms with a strong varnish, making sure the entire interior was well coated. This is to avoid rapid changes in humidity to crack the bamboo during the bike's lifetime.
I was then ready to assemble my jig:

There was a good deal of measuring involved, and lots of adjusting to get everything aligned properly. some cuts had to be repeated several times and I even ended up inventing a tool, using a drill and a piece of bamboo, to speed up the mitering process.

Mitering was done to the most exacting degree possible with the tools I had, as I knew that this was key for the strength of the frame. I tried always to get the largest surface area to contact the metal parts or the adjoining bamboo tube, and was careful to rough and clean all surfaces with acetone before joining with epoxy adhesive.

The epoxy was only a preliminary tacking device, to hold the alignment for the wrapping of all joints using henequen, or sisal fiber, soaked in a polyurethane resin usually used in car body modification. The resin I obtained is also used locally in the construction of carousel animals for children.

The next phase of the project was probably the most difficult, as it involved handling of the toxic resin. I had to manually soak the natural fibers in the polyurethane, and then apply them in small strands to the joints by wrapping tin criss cross patterns that would evenly distribute pressure around the joint. This is the part that requires the most skill and artistry, and I think the results could be greatly improved by establishing patterns for knotting and weaving the joints. I wonder whether the joint wrapping could be perfected to the point where the polyurethane might be replaced by some natural resin, such as a cactus sap and beeswax mix. The toxic resin has to be made in small batches, as it hardens in under an hour. Some fiber is visible in the photo as well.

After the soaked fiber is applied, it has to be wrapped very tightly with electrical tape to dry, this is important to get a solid joint.
The entire building process for this frame, from the point I had assembled all the material, took me around 30 days, working 3 to 5 hours daily, or around 150 hours. I estimate this can be reduced by 30% with experience and a well organized workshop.
Actually building up the bike once the resin had cured (and I had sanded the joints a little to make them cosmetically reasonable), took another day's work. I went to my favourite local bike shop, so I could try a range of parts and be able to use the tools there. My mechanic friend was very excited with the project and happy to help.

The final product came together nicely, and I enjoyed that special feeling of having achieved remarkable accomplishment. The reactions of people to the bike are a testament to the revolutionary potential of this technology.

I have put around 2 thousand kilometers on the bike at the time of this writing, and although I have noticed a couple details that I could have done differently, it is all in all a very comfortable, fast and surprisingly strong bike. It weighs just shy of 9kg, which is comparable to expensive aluminum or high-grade steel bikes.

At this point I am taking time to reflect on how to bring this wonderfull technology forward. Making bikes is a wonderful thing, and I intend to continue doing so, in fact, I already have eight orders for custom bamboo bikes from all sorts of people who have been fascinated by the first one. I feel that there is the potential for much more here, though. In The Book of Bamboo, David Farley has a rough diagram of a well-drilling setup that uses bamboo poles to hold a large bit that is made to spin using gravity. This design could be made much more efficient by adding pedals to it! There is renewed interest in human-powered machines and developing working methods of constructing these out of renewable resources is a very important step. For this, simple methods of transmiting drive-train power must be designed, probably requiering the use of some metal parts. Research into the use of pedal powered dynamos to generate electrical power could open new realms of possibilities for these machines. In short, the bamboo bike is a window into a world of things that can be built. One of the most exciting aspects of this project is that it puts the building of mechanical devices back into the realm of the artisan. This is one of the most liberating and powerful lessons I learned during the entire process: We are not dependant on corporations or the industrial establishment except in psychological ways. If needed, we are able to create and procure all the needs they allegedly meet for us. We have the information and technology available to allow us to become autonomous and independent of capitalist systems, to the extent that we are willing to work toward this end.

My next Steps
Almost immediately after I finished the bike, people began asking me how much I would sell it for, or make them one for. I struggled with this question, as I had not originally intended to make bikes for sale. After figuring out the amount of time I spent on making a frame and assembling the bike, and factoring in the cost of materials, I decided to charge on a sliding scale, based on the client´s actual income. Therefore, the price of the bike frame is two weeks pay, all the other components (fork, wheels, brakes, handlebars, etc.), are extra. I figured this would allow me to make bikes for local people at a reasonable price, and still sell to more affluent customers to offset, or subsidize, these prices. It will be interesting to see how this system works out with my first eight customers. One of the things I find most interesting about this system, is that it requires a personal relationship betweeen the builder and the buyer of the bike. It also involves a relationship of trust, and is an attempt at an equitable commercial endeavour.

After the intense learning experience of having built a racing bike, I immediately set to work on a more practical cargo bike. This means it has a longtail frame, or a frame with the rear wheel further back to support the long rack and cargo, as can be seen in this picture of the main frame structure set up in the tacking jig. This is a copy of the bikes made in Africa by The Bamboo Bike Project, and I think it will have a major impact here in Chiapas, where it is not uncommon to see entire families on one bike.